Dew Angels

by Melanie Schwapp

  She felt the skin welt immediately. It split easily as the buckle tore into her blouse, decorating the grey fabric with streaks of red. She never cried out, for she knew that any sound, any pleading, would make him hit harder, and for a longer time. “You want someting to cry ‘bout?” he would ask, and the effort of the beating would make the sweat bead on his forehead. So Nola always bit her tongue to stop the tears, till the salty blood was both in and out of her body.

  She did instead, the only thing she knew how to do to escape, to pass the time till Papa’s arm got slack with fatigue—she took her mind to Grampy’s face. She covered her face and took her mind to the sweet wrinkled cheeks that waffled up and down in time to his chuckles. But, something very strange happened; instead of seeing Grampy’s face, she saw Merlene’s, thin eyebrows raised in warning, “I wish our men would stop beatin’ up the women.”

  The voice rang through the kitchen, resounding off the walls and drowning out Papa’s panting.

  She heard the tinkle of metal hitting the floor, and Papa’s fist found its way home. Her feet skittered, always taken by surprise by the first punch, but she braced herself on the counter, and stood fast for the ones to follow.

  The voice came again, louder than before. This time it jarred her so much that her stance was shaken once again and she stumbled when Papa struck. Her hands fell from her face and she stared straight into Papa’s eyes. How large his pupils were when they were dilated by anger—and something else—hatred! It flashed through his eyes and flared his nostrils. She’d never seen it so close before. She’d never seen it so real. It was because she’d always remained hidden behind her fingers. But tonight, Merlene’s voice had made her hands fall away, and she’d seen it for herself.

  Her eyes opened wide with the acknowledgement of the truth, and her brown gaze locked with the frigid grey of Papa’s. She saw the fist rise, but it never came back down. She watched the grey eyes dart from her stare to her quivering jaw, and back to her eyes, but still the fist did not strike. Eventually, it lowered itself and reached instead for her collar. It pulled her so close to his face that the fishy hate washed over her.

  “Who you think you is, saunterin’ in here any time you like, while everybody else doing your work for you?” Spittle sprayed her face. “You think I send you to school to go gallivantin’ by the river all night instead of comin’ home to earn you keep? Eh? You think things free ‘round here? We must work while you gallivant all day? How much time I must tell you to find your burro-brush head home at evenin’ time and make some use of yourself?”

  Then he opened the kitchen door with one hand while with the other he still held her collar firmly. He turned her around, so that the swollen coolness of the rain blasted her hot cheeks. She felt his foot in her back, the soft fabric of his sock against the curved nook of her spine—another perfect fit. Then she felt the foot draw back. As she catapulted down the kitchen steps and slammed into the zinc of pimento beans, she could taste the spicy beans on her tongue as they scattered over the wet grass.

  When she finally stopped rolling, her arms were twisted beneath her torso and her left cheek was pressed against soil. The force of the raindrops splattered mud into her eyes and she had to squeeze them shut to prevent the stinging.

  The rhythm of the rain became stronger on her back. Puddup, puddup, puddud, tap, tap, tap. So funny how they felt like fingers, tapping at her shoulders, pulling at her shoulders, turning her over, unfolding her stiffened limbs. Hands! Hands were on her! Someone was lifting her into the cradle of arms, carrying her to the coolie plum tree where the battering drops were thwarted by the thick branches, and Nola could finally open her eyes. She gave a sob of shame. Delroy!

  She wanted to wriggle free of his arms and run back into the rain, but her legs could do nothing but dangle from his arms as he pushed past Ellie’s rump to put her on the empty feed bag in the corner of the pen. Nola blinked through the water droplets on her lashes and stared in awe as he lowered himself beside her. Her eyes felt raw, as if they’d been turned inside out.

  “Where hurting?” Delroy’s voice startled her and made her jerk her leg from the spot where it had been resting against his knee. However, the sudden movement jarred her ripped skin and bruised limbs and she moaned before she could stop herself.

  “Where hurting?” He asked again, anxiously this time.

  Nola wanted to scream. Why you care where hurtin’ me? Instead, she shook her head slowly. The water from her braids dripped unto his legs and he leaned forward to wipe the drops from her forehead. It took all her strength not to flinch again.

  “I would’a help you up sooner, but them was still at the window.”

  He’d seen the whole thing!

  “When you leave Dahlia, you did seem so ‘fraid.” He was speaking again, his voice strangely unsteady. “I thought you was ‘fraid to walk home alone, so I follow you, … and then, just when I was leavin’, I hear him …” His voice trailed away.

  Her head was reeling. Why would Delroy have cared that she was afraid to walk home? And why did his face seem so anxious? Hadn’t he been the one who’d kicked the scrimmage box into her shoulder? She started to shiver.

  Delroy pulled something from the rafters. Grampy’s blue towel, the one he’d used to wipe his forehead and the sap-stained blade of his machete. When Delroy attempted to open it, it remained scrunched in a balled shape and he had to pull hard on the folds to get it around Nola’s shoulders.

  “You better take off those wet tings,” Delroy instructed.

  This time she found her voice. “With you here?” He stared silently at her for a couple seconds before he stood up. But, as he bent and stretched his hands towards her, she flinched and covered her head with her arms. It was an automatic reaction, her body still in survival mode from her beating. Delroy crouched again beside her. He held the ends of the towel and pulled her towards him.

  “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t lick you up like that! The juice box was a accident.”

  Nola’s chin gave a disbelieving quiver.

  Delroy stared at her for a long time, his face pale in the watery light, until something in his eyes made Nola have to look away. Then he released the towel and was gone.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Nola stared at the soft light filtering through the doorway. She’d slept the whole night on the ground, and now every muscle in her body was aching. She reached for the uniform she’d hung over the rafter the night before. Still damp, but better than walking half-naked up to the house. She had to lean against the wall to pull on the skirt. As she lifted her leg, she felt a suspicious stickiness against her thighs, and her heart fell as she recognized the crimson stain on the crocus bag. It hadn’t been due for another couple days, but now here it was. It must have been the fall. That, or the kick in her back.

  The clank of pots from the kitchen told her that the house was awake. She walked slowly from the pen, her thighs sticking together as she tried to ignore the stiffness in her body. The dutch pots were still on the kitchen steps, the bits of mango floating within like little goldfish. She looked towards the kitchen window, straight into Mama’s eyes, sunk so deep into her face that the folds of skin enveloped them like an old blanket. Her chin lifted slightly as she met Nola’s eyes, then shifted quickly sideways.

  Papa. He was there.

  Nola scrubbed her thighs at the pipe. The water immediately turned to rust. She finally went to the kitchen door, uncertain if she should just walk in or wait for Mama to open it. She never knew what to expect after one of Papa’s rages. Sometimes, it would take the slightest thing to keep him angry for days, yet at other times, just hours after he’d delivered one of his lashings, he would look blankly at her, as if her dark skin had suddenly become transparent.

  She knocked. Mama wasn’t sure about the state of Papa’s anger either. Nola could tell by the way her eyes darted towards him when she opened the door. He didn’t look up from his mug of coffee, so Mama handed her the di
shcloth that had been hanging over her shoulder, her hands lingering on Nola’s for a split second. Her fingers felt like fire against Nola’s ice-tipped ones. Her eyes swept anxiously over Nola’s face, from her disheveled braids to the ashy sky, and even though she did not speak, Nola could tell what she was thinking—“Why you can’t just do what he says, Nola? Why you can’t just behave? See what you cause again?”

  When Mama finally released the towel, Nola pressed it to her face, breathing in the warmth and precisely clean smell of Mama as she timidly looked around the kitchen. It was exactly as it was the night before. The mango skins from Louisa’s peeling were now shrivelled brown spirals all over the table. Her school bag was on the floor, still covered in its white dusting of cornstarch.

  “Make sure you clean up this mess before you leave here today.” Papa’s voice was as nonchalant as if he were reminding her to eat breakfast, yet it made Nola jump and drop the towel.

  “Yes, Sir,” she nodded, making the blood gush up and down her head.

  She bent to retrieve the towel and immediately used it to brush the mango skins from the table into the cupped bowl of her hand. She had to step over her school bag to stuff them into the bin, and Mama bent to move it out of her way.

  “Sadie, don’t I tell you not to touch nothing? That’s why this pickney so damn lazy, because you do everyting for her. If you touch one more ting in here, Sadie, me and you today.” Papa’s voice was as quiet as before, but when he put his enamel mug back on the table, the coffee slushed over the side.

  Mama dropped the school bag to the floor and turned to go back to the sink.

  “Nola, my car not workin’. It in the garage again, so you goin’ to have to deliver to the Spences on Saturdays. Good way for you to make up for leavin’ your mother and sister to do all your work.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Blood-gushing nod again.

  She dared not argue. Mrs. Spence had told Mama that she would gladly pick up the chutneys whenever Papa’s car was on the blink, but Nola did not say that. She only nodded. Yes, she would clean the kitchen. Yes, she would go to school with her raging bruises and face the shame of seeing Delroy Reckus. Yes, she would make the trek to the Spences every Saturday with the chutneys. Yes! Yes! Yes! Always her answer to a world that told her ‘No!’

  CHAPTER

  11

  Life settled like silt in the river after a storm. Nola regained her balance. She returned to Dahlia’s house, getting home on time every afternoon to complete her chores. Delroy never mentioned that night in the rain, but, every now and again, she would glance up to find him staring, and she would have to look away to hide the rush of shame on her face.

  But something had definitely changed in him since that night. He now added to the conversation as they sat outside Slugga’s office, and then on Merlene’s front lawn as they did their work. But he still refused to enter the pink house. The farthest he would go was onto the little verandah, but never through the front door.

  Every now and again, Biscuit would come with her bounty of Bombay mangoes and her boisterous tales. However, no matter how interesting the stories, no matter how comfortably they all sat laughing on that lawn, Nola always watched the sky, and as soon as it began to waver in its afternoon intensity, she would grab her books and rush through the hedge. Once, she even felt Delroy nudge her with the corner of his book, and when she turned to look at him, his eyes lifted upwards to indicate the weakening sky.

  It was in this comfortable existence, in this half-relaxed camaraderie, that Nola told Dahlia and Delroy about Grampy’s Dew Angels. The story just slipped out one afternoon. But, she told them with laughter in her voice, in case they thought she’d been silly enough to believe the old man’s tale.

  Dahlia spoke first, her voice filled with wonder. “You think your grampa did see them? Ole people see things that we can’t see, you know. Miss Aggie see duppy all the time!”

  Delroy scoffed. “The only duppy Mad Aggie ever see is her own!”

  Dahlia jumped up and jammed her hands on to her hips. “What you saying, Delroy? That you don’t believe in spirits? You saying that Nola’s grampa tell her lie?”

  Delroy gave Nola an apologetic look. “Not a lie – just a tale, like when them tell children ‘bout Santa and all those tings– no such thing as Santa.”

  Dahlia’s face fell, her lip-nose drooping like a deflated balloon. “Delroy Reckus, you heart so tough that is a wonder that you even get it to beat! There is such a thing as Santa! People like you wouldn’t know ‘bout Santa cause you have to understand that Santa is not a person—it’s a feelin’.” Dahlia fanned her hand dismissively at Delroy.

  Nola looked down at her own hands. She wouldn’t have understood that ‘feelin’ either.

  “That’s why you must believe in things like the dew angels, Nola,” Dahlia continued. “That’s why your grampa leave you with that story, so that you can always have that feelin’ in your heart! No matter how bad today is, you know that tomorrow tings can change.”

  Delroy scoffed again.

  “You can laugh all you want, Delroy Reckus, but lemme tell you someting, if you don’t believe in mystery, then you don’t believe in God, and you don’t believe in love!”

  “So why you think God make so much bad things happen to people? Why him have to make the good things be a mystery?” Delroy almost shouted. “Why him never just make it easy for us and give us the good things right up FRONT!?”

  Dahlia blinked, her lip-nose quivering slightly.

  “Bad things happen because we live with bad people ‘round us. But God give you the good things, the mystery, to help you deal with them better.” Dahlia paused and looked towards the verandah where Merlene had come to pick up her mug from the table. Merlene waved and they all waved back. “You know we had a big house in Kingston, and a car, and Mama and Papa had a supermarket? Them used to work there all day, sometimes late in the night cause the supermarket was always full. Them used to make plenty money.” She shook her head. “But my father … my papa was a bad person.” She shook her head again and corrected herself, “Papa was a good person, but him used to do bad things. Him used to take drugs.”

  She paused long enough for Nola to gasp and then quickly catch herself.

  “Yes, my father used to take drugs! I never know, ‘cause Mama used to hide it from me, just smile and make me think everyting was fine. Then him start to beat her, so bad that sometimes she used to have to go doctor.”

  Nola gasped again. She just couldn’t imagine anyone hitting sweet Merlene. No wonder she’d been so passionate about the argument of men hitting women! No wonder Nola had felt such a bond with her, more than that of being one of Redding’s outcasts.

  Dahlia began to speak again. “Mama would take the licks, and when she was bleedin’ on the ground, can’t walk, can’t even talk, Papa would say that him was sorry, that him never goin’ do it again. And sometimes for a little while him would stop. Then him would go away again to where them sell the drugs, stay for a while, then him would come back and start to lick Mama all over again!”

  Dahlia sighed and looked up at the sky. “But the last time … the last time, I try to stop him. I beg him to stop lickin’ Mama. I beg him not to kill her! But him wouldn’t stop, so I take the kitchen knife and stick it right here.” She pointed to her right side, her finger jabbing at the flesh over and over again as if the memory had stuck within her like a scratched record. “Even with the knife in him, and the blood everywhere, him come after me. Him lick me straight in my face.” Dahlia stared down at the fist she’d made with her hand. “And him bust open my whole face, till my nose and my mouth forget where them was supposed to be. That’s how hard my father lick me.”

  Delroy pretended to clear his throat, but Nola knew it was a muffled exclamation.

  “Mama say we have to leave. She go back to the supermarket when them take Papa to hospital, and she take all the money from the office. She tie up my face with cloth, and we catch a bus that same night. M
ama say we was goin’ wherever God lead us. When we get to Clarendon, we come off the bus to pee-pee, and a woman who was sittin’ behind us ask Mama what happen to my face. Mama tell her that I drop from a step, and she give Mama two sweet sop from her basket, and you know what she say? She tell Mama that the sweetest fruits in Jamaica come from Redding! And guess what? When we get back on the bus, the woman wasn’t there! Gone, just like a duppy! Mama say that was our angel, telling us to come to Redding. So we come here, and I never see my papa since.”

  Delroy let out his breath in a faint whistle. “Him dead?” he asked.

  Dahlia shook her head. Nola stared in awe at the girl’s lip-nose. It was as if she’d suddenly discovered a secret compartment in a room that she’d thought she’d known from corner to corner. And then, right before her eyes, Dahlia’s face unfolded. The thick upper lip uncurled from its tight hold on the nose, and the nose pulled up the wings that had flattened across the cheeks. Right before her eyes, Dahlia became un-ugly. Nola felt overwhelmed with shame at the years she’d made that ugliness her secret pleasure when all along it had been the result of a battle for life. Hers and her mama’s. They’d had to run, to leave everything that had been familiar to them, and at the direction of a stranger, ended up in a village that despised the very air they breathed.

  “But how is all that a good thing?” Delroy’s voice sounded like it did that night in the rain.

  Dahlia gave him a look of exasperation. “Because my father tell my mother that if she ever leave him, him goin’ find her and kill her. But that angel send us here, where Papa can’t ever find us. We happy, me and Mama. No matter what anybody do to us, what anybody say, them can’t ever hurt us like my father hurt us. Them can’t ever tear us apart.” She cocked her head at Delroy.

  “Yes, bad things did happen, but we can always remember the good things, me and Mama—like when my papa used to put out my presents when I go to sleep Christmas Eve, so I would believe that Santa come. Mama say him used to wake up early just to see my face when I see those presents. Now, when I think of my papa, I can know that him really did love me.”